A hard-disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile storage device which is housed in a protective enclosure and stores digitally encoded data on one or more circular platters having magnetic surfaces. When an HDD is in operation, each platter is rapidly rotated by a spindle system. Data is read from and written to a platter using a read/write head which is positioned over a specific location on a platter by an actuator.
A read/write head uses a magnetic field to read data from and write data to the surface of the platter. As a magnetic dipole field decreases rapidly with distance from a magnetic pole, the space between a read/write head and the surface of a platter must be tightly controlled. To provide a uniform distance between a read/write head and the surface of a platter, an actuator relies on air generated by a self-acting air bearing surface to support the read/write heads at the proper distance away from the surface of a platter while the platter rotates. A read/write head therefore is said to “fly” over the surface of a platter. That is, the air pulled along by a spinning platter forces the head away from the surface of the platter. When a platter stops spinning, a read/write head must either “land” on the platters or be pulled away.
To prevent the actuator from inadvertently moving too far in one direction, a physical barrier, known as a crash stop, may be placed within the interior of the hard-disk drive (HDD). A crash stop is typically constructed using a cylindrical piece of rubber. The placement of the crash stop within the interior of the hard-disk drive (HDD) may vary from implementation to implementation, although its position should prevent the actuator from making physical contact with the protective enclosure, or other components, of the hard-disk drive (HDD). In this way, if the hard-disk drive (HDD) is accidently dropped or otherwise receives a mechanical shock, the crash stop helps prevent the actuator from making unwanted contact with other physical components within the hard-disk drive (HDD), which could damage those components or cause harmful airborne particles to be introduced within the interior of the hard-disk drive (HDD).
As the rate of the air flow circulating within the enclosure of the HDD increases, the likelihood that the circulating air flow will disturb the position, and thus the operation, of the magnetic read/write head also increases. To prevent or minimize the disruption caused by the circulating flow of air, the actuator is typically protected by an upstream spoiler which helps divert the flow of air away from the actuator. The diverter also reduces the magnitude of the circulating air flow. The physical dimensions of most HDD models have decreased in size over time. Unfortunately, due to the lack of available space for positioning and affixing the upstream spoiler during the manufacturing of an HDD, installing upstream spoilers within HDDs has become increasingly complex and burdensome.